


To Love You Always

by LallybrochLoser



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Angst Is Canon, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Twitter, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27296341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LallybrochLoser/pseuds/LallybrochLoser
Summary: Two babies were born six months apart in a small Scottish Highland village and it would shape the lives they would live.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jenny Fraser/Ian Murray
Comments: 11
Kudos: 129





	To Love You Always

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed something with more fluff than angst, okay?! Blame Kris and Becca on Twitter :3 un-beta'd, unedited, all mistakes are my own, I own none of the characters, blah blah blah its midnight I need sleep. ENJOY!! :D

Two babies were born in Broch Mordha in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and twenty one.

In May, a wee redheaded laddie. In October, a brown haired, golden eyed lass. They were the only bairns born that year.

The Laird and Lady of Lallybroch were so happy to add another redheaded lad to their family. The lass' parents were proud, privileged and honored to call the Laird and Lady their closest friends.

"They'll be best mates, My Lady, I'm telling you!" Julia Beauchamp beamed as she nursed her daughter beside Lady Broch Tuarach.

"Julia, I've told ye this 'afore, ye dinna have tae address me sae formally when it's just us and the weans," Ellen Fraser said in a tone meant to sound scolding but her smile gave her away. In truth, Ellen was blessed to have a friend who didn't look at her different because of her status in Broch Mordha. She, too, was nursing her bairn.

The little redheaded boy at her breast fussed and unlatched himself, a wee bubble of unhappiness emanating from his tiny body.

"Och, Jamie, ye wee feind!" Ellen laughed and she brought him to her shoulder for  _ a burp.  _ "Yer brother was the same way, _ a chuisle. _ " 

"He's a strong eater I see." Julia sighed, looking down at her own nursing bundle, acting in much the same squirming manner. "My Claire bear is the same way."

The women did this as often as they could. Which was a good thing. 

When Claire Beauchamp was five, her mother died in childbed trying to give her a little brother.

Her father, Henry, was so distraught that his grief ate away at him; a fever took him in his sleep just eight months later.

A sobbing, scared Claire stood on the steps of Lallybroch in the dead of night and walked right in, hoping someone was awake to soothe her anguish.

When no one came, she found a blanket, laid on the Fraser family's sofa and cried herself to sleep.

Little Jamie found her the next morning, bright red curls standing up at all angles from his own sleep.

"Sassenach?" He said and walked over to see her. 

He would reflect later on in life that, even at five years old, he could tell she was hurting. Knew it in his heart, soul, and bones. He knew, somehow, only he could soothe her pain. He reached out to wake her.

She startled away from his touch, but not for long. For Claire, similar to Jamie, she would look back at him and thank God he found her first.

"My father died, Jamie...he just…" she sniffed, hoping she didn't start crying again. Jamie never cried around her, so she wouldn't do it in front of him and that was that.

"He missed yer mam," Jamie finished for her. 

“I miss her too.”

She failed. The sobs rolled off her small frame like the winds of a hurricane.

Jamie all but forced himself next to her and allowed him to hug her, even though only girls hugged people like  _ that. _

"Dinna fash. No one will bother ye. I'm here."

The vow that small five year old boy made to her would follow them for the rest of their lives.

Claire moved into Lallybroch with the Fraser family after her father had been laid to rest next to her mother and brother. It was the best of times for the little girl.

For a while.

Three years later, Jamie would experience that loss too when his own mother died in childbed with the remnants of his own baby brother buried next to her. Jamie would be held in Claire's arms and he would cry his heart out for the mother that was taken from him and his family too soon, for the wee brother who was robbed of the chance to live.

It was Claire's turn to make the same vow that was made to her three years prior. Neither of them realized that they had pledged their fealty to one another. 

Life would go on. Jamie's older brother Willie would die of the smallpox, leaving the young boy of either to inherit the Lairdship of Lallybroch.

A boy named Ian Murray would become part of their little circle. The four of them were thick as thieves. Any kind of mischief that got up in Broch Mordha or Lallybroch, everyone would point the fingers at Jamie, Claire, Jenny and Ian. They would recount those days as some of the greatest in their childhood.

Many years later, a sixteen year old Jamie would be sent to France with his uncle to continue his education. Claire, almost sixteen herself at the time, would count the days, the hours, the number of heartbeats until his return. She didn't realize until he left just how far she had fallen for the tall, redheaded boy who was only a few months older than her.

Jamie must have been feeling the same way, because when he returned, he threw his arms around her, tightening the amount of breathing space, and declared to his whole family that-

"I wish tae court Mistress Beauchamp."

To Claire’s surprise, everyone acted like this was not breaking news.

“You all knew?!” Claire exclaimed.

Jenny looked between her brother and Claire, with Ian’s arms wrapped around her middle. The two of them had started courting about a year before.

“It’s no’ like it wasna obvious,  _ a nighean. _ ”

That caused everyone to laugh. Including Claire.

But when she looked back into Jamie’s bright, blue eyes, she knew he was serious. Serious about her. And she saw her entire world in those eyes.

Their courtship wouldn’t last long. Within a year of Jenny and Ian marrying, Jamie and Claire officially became husband and wife.

Jamie stood there in his brand new kilt with the bold colors of the Fraser Clan, looking down at his new bride in her white corset, stays and skirts, and thanking God she was in his life. Had been in his life, literally, since he was naught more than a bairn.

Aside from his immediate family, Claire had been in his life from the very start. They had shared many things together. A home, family, siblings, triumphs, losses, tears, hugs, laughter, and now that he could call her his bride, he knew they would share many more things as one entity in matrimony.

And share they would.

A year into their marriage, Jamie’s father suffered an apoplexy and died. This left Jamie and Claire as the Laird and Lady Broch Tuarach. While Jamie had been preparing for this role for most of his life, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could not possibly do this without his wife.

Without his Sassenach.

The two of them would go on to have four children. Two girls and two boys. Faith was their oldest and, like her sister Brianna that would be born after Fergus, she was the spitting image of her father. Red curls and blue eyes alike. William was their youngest and Claire’s most traumatic birth of the four bairns. Jamie wept with a limp, bleeding Claire in his lap while the midwife tried desperately to save his wife’s life.

To this day, Jamie believes that God was in that room that day, and laid His hands upon her to heal her, for none of them know how or why the bleeding stopped when it did. Had it not, Claire would have surely died, and the bairn along with her.

As Claire watched her children grow and turn into the people they were, she wondered if there were other children out there in the world who were born the same years they were. Was their soulmate out there, waiting for them to be found, like Jamie was for her?

Laying in their bed that night, Jamie could see his wife had something on her mind.

“I ken that look a thousand miles away, Sassenach,” Jamie mused, setting his opened bible pages down on his nightstand.

“It’s not hard with the apparent glass face I have, huh,” Claire chided back, but with a small smile.

“Tell me yer troubles,  _ mo chridhe. _ ”

“They’re not really troubles...I don’t think they are anyway.”

“Och aye? What is it then?”

Jamie slid closed in the bed so that his hip bumped up against Claire’s. He wrapped a strong arm around her slender frame, bringing her head to rest against his heart.

“I sometimes wonder if our children will ever find their soulmate...like we found each other.”

Jamie chuckled a bit. “Well fer us, it wasna hard. We were both born in this house. And ye didna live far...”

Claire playfully slapped at his stomach, eliciting a laugh from both of them. “What I mean is...will they ever find their happiness...the way we found ours?”

“I ken they will. God made people so they could love, and be loved...”

“Is that why you’re here then?” Claire asked. “To love me?”

Jamie looked down and pressed featherlight kisses against Claire’s nose, forehead, then gave his lips to her for longer than was necessary to show her his love.

Then he pulled away and looked her square in the eyes.

_ “Gus do ghràdh an-còmhnaidh.” _

Being from England originally, and having no idea how in the world she maintained an English accent while growing up in Scotland and around Scots, she never got around to learning Gàidhlig. But there were just some phrases that her husband had said to her enough for her to have them committed to memory.

“To love you always.”


End file.
